“A shell in the pit," said I, "if the worst comes to worst will kill them all."
The intense excitement of the events had no doubt left my perceptive powers in a state of erethism. I remember that dinner table with extraordinary vividness even now. My dear wife's sweet anxious face peering at me from under the pink lampshade, the white cloth with it silver and glass table furniture—for in those days even philosophical writers had luxuries—the crimson-purple wine in my glass, are photographically distinct. At the end of it I sat, tempering nuts with a cigarette, regretting Ogilvy's rashness, and denouncing the shortsighted timidity of the Martians.
So some respectable dodo in the Mauritius might have lorded it in his nest, and discussed the arrival of that shipful of pitiless sailors in want of animal food. "We will peck them to death tomorrow, my dear.”
In my opening post, I expressed my disappointment at having to take a first semester of classes saturated with familiar material. Over the next few posts I want to share what resources I have used to learn that material which have led me to have high confidence in my ability to do well in my upcoming courses.
Let's take a look at how I learned mathematics up to calculus and how you might as well. I wasn't a great student when I went to high school and graduated by the skin of my teeth 14 years ago. It's difficult to say with any appreciable degree of accuracy what my exact mindset was at the time. My best recollection has me aspiring to become a musician (Not a rock star. I was far too introverted to feel comfortable as the center of attention). So I worked at a music instrument shop into my early 20s. Years later I discovered poker where, as The Talent Code author Daniel Coyle would say, my motivation for mathematical modeling was ignited. In December of 2010 I followed a link from a poker discussion forum to khanacademy.org where I found a bevy of mathematical tutorial videos. The topics ranged from basic arithmetic through algebra and calculus to statistics and probability and even fundamental physics and chemistry. The real addiction to learning through Sal Khan's wonderful site comes from the exercises and gamified profile layout. By focusing on taking notes and pausing to predict what Sal was going to say next (a learning technique that I acquired from watching poker instructional videos), I was able to grasp the material fairly well. There were some frustrations but I managed to actively watch and take notes of all of the mathematical videos and complete the exercises all within the time frame of one year. A much more daunting task now that the website has grown to include topics such as art history, physiology and organic chemistry.
Which takes me to the spring of 2012 and my first Coursera class about Game Theory. This was one of the few initial offerings by the team at Coursera and Stanford University. The site now features hundreds of classes ranging from areas of interest such as finance, statistical modeling, philosophy, engineering and physics from dozens of highly regarded institutions. If you were able to take a pill that would enable you to live forever, would you take it? I would! There are so many things to learn and not enough time to learn them all. (Can Moore's Law help explain information generation, storage, and consumption?)
Since September of 2012, I have learned a lot from my coursera classes. I may do some reviews of the classes that I have taken in future posts if I have the time. For now I'll just share which classes I have taken and completed to receive a 'certificate':
Game Theory (Stanford)
Model Thinking (U of Mich)
Intro to Mathematical Thinking (Stanford)
Introduction to Logic (Stanford)
Cryptography I (Stanford)
Introduction to Genetics and Evolution (Duke)
Think Again: How to Reason and Argue (Duke)
Introduction to Astronomy (Duke)
Computing for Data Analysis (Johns Hopkins)
Galaxies and Cosmology (CalTech)
Science from Superheroes to Global Warming (UC Irvine)
Pre-Calculus (UC Irvine)
Astrobiology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life (Edinburgh)
Algebra (UC Irvine)
Games without Chance: Combinatorial Game Theory (Georgia Tech)
Introduction to Engineering Mechanics (Georgia Tech)
How Things Work 1 (University of Virginia)
Calculus One (Ohio State)
So why participate in these brick and mortar classes at all when there are all these web resources and exams, such as CLEP, that I could take to gain the necessary credits? There are a few reasons for my decision to forego these exams. The first being that I really want to make sure that I have a level of mastery of the material before moving on. Seeing as this will be an introduction to formal college level education for me, it seems best to keep this initial semester as manageable as possible. A feeling out period if you will. It's also possible that I will feel much more comfortable engaging in study groups where I can potentially help others understand the material. It may just make that social experience between age groups a little easier to bridge and should help strengthen my own understanding as well. This is important for the field that I seek expertise in. You simply cannot learn and do physics without access to lab equipment and a network of knowledgeable acquaintances. The lab is one thing that MOOCs will fail to provide for the foreseeable future. The social network may still be gained at a distance with the increasing accessibility of live web chats through Google+ Hangouts and Skype. Yet true mastery in any field is most often attained by absorbing that material, thinking about its implications and expelling it in a way that your peers can easily follow and understand. The social connections are what I'm looking forward to the most when I finally get to go to college.
